


So We Tread On

by deluxemycroft



Series: Ouroboros [20]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Asgard, Canon Divergence, Clint Barton Has Issues, Codependency, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Deaf Clint Barton, Disabilities, Disabled Character, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Infinity Gems, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loyalty, M/M, Magic, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Potions, Reality Stone (Marvel), Service Submission, Soul Magic, Soul Stone (Marvel), Starvation, The Tesseract (Marvel), Time Travel Fix-It, fixing things with magic, magic fixes everything, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deluxemycroft/pseuds/deluxemycroft
Summary: Every journey, no matter how long or arduous, begins with the smallest of steps.This is that first step.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Loki, Clint Barton/Stephen Strange, Loki/Steve Rogers
Series: Ouroboros [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1199902
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much everyone for sticking around. i've been hacking away at this for months now (this is the...fourth? fifth? rewrite of this and i think i finally got it right) and i wanted to post something before we go deeper into the Search for Steve (tm). so he's not in this one, but he's mentioned. there's just a lot of stuff that needs done before that.
> 
> thanks again to everyone that's left kudos and comments over the short past hiatus of this series. updates are probably going to be a bit slower in between fics, but i promise i'm still working on it!! as of right now (the posting of this first chapter) there are planned four more fics. that may change but i'm hoping no more than 25 fics total (which is kind of wild lol, and this series was originally planned to be a trilogy!).
> 
>  **bold** is texting
> 
> fic is complete, i post every saturday.  
> enjoy!

The house was dark, the windows shuttered, the front door locked and shut behind him. He trotted down the porch steps and knelt down in front of them, digging a small hole in the hard dirt with his fingers. He carefully used the ruby-hilted dagger to prick a finger and bled a few drops on top of the dirt, waiting until all of the blood was absorbed into the ground before covering it back up. He pushed to his feet, sliding the dagger onto the sheath on his belt, and he walked to the small fence separating the small front yard from one of the fields.

Loki of Asgard stopped there and turned back, looking back at the quiet, dark house. His eyes landed on the porch railing, recently repainted by Bucky, and he smiled at the memory of when he had accidentally broken one of the porch posts and hadn’t fixed it right away. He didn’t even remember how he had broken it—perhaps he had accidentally kicked it or dropped something? It had only been a few years ago, but so many things had happened; what was one post off a railing? Why would he remember something so small? Yet now, with so many things changed, all he wanted was to _know_. Had that railing even been broken with the new timeline? How many other little things were the same and how many were different?

He had a feeling he would be finding the answer to those questions for many years to come.

He looked up at the quiet, dark house. It was strange to see it as such; he was used to the life brought by Laura and the children, by Bucky and Sam sitting on the porch watching the sunset, by Clint and him sharing a cup of coffee in the kitchen, Steve reading a book or sketching in Loki’s armchair in the living room, letting one of the kids play with his shield.

But it was quiet now; it did not feel like a home any longer, but a house. He had created new rooms in the place of his old ones, but it was not the same. Nothing felt the same.

He turned away, and walked down the long driveway to the place where it met the main road, and he dug another small hole, using the ruby-hilted dagger once again to bleed into the dirt. Then he made the long walk to the furthest corner of the property, walking through long grass and running his fingers over tree bark and leaves and looking up at the black sky dotted with small, cold stars. A small breeze lifted his long hair off his neck and he paused for a moment, enjoying the feeling.

There were no property line markers or a fence to designate the perimeter, but there was a distinct, strange feeling that came over Loki as he stepped over it. He and Clint Barton were intertwined and bound together and the moment Loki left his property, there was something missing: Clint. He stepped back over the threshold and then walked around for a few minutes, finding the corner, and then he knelt down and bled into the last hole, tying it into the wards with seidr. Once it was in place, the spell snapped into place, a shockwave of green seidr racing through the air to connect with the various _vigja._

Loki reached out and strummed his fingers along the seidr, watching the waves radiate out. He had already tied Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, himself, Clint Barton, Lady Sif, and Balder to the wards, as well as an alert for Steve Rogers and Stephen Strange. But this specific spell tied the ground to him, to Asgard. It belonged to him, became a part of him.

He did not believe that Steve was anywhere on Midgard or Asgard, but he knew his husband was alive, and so very far away. For now, being alive was all that mattered. 

Steve could take care of himself. If Loki had faith in anything, it was that Steve was strong and capable and powerful. He was the wielder of the Power Stone, after all, and he was a wielder of Mjolnir. Surely there were few beings in any galaxy more powerful than he. Loki had to believe in that, had to believe in Steve, to know that he could fix the things that needed fixing before he went to go find Steve. He could not let himself panic about Steve, could not let himself worry, could not let himself fret, not when there was so much left to do. He could let himself break down when he had Steve back, after he had found him, and surely not a moment before.

He strode back to the house, looking around the battle-scarred fields, walking over the deep crevices in the dirt, his feet finding the spot where Thanos had died. He stopped there, looking around at where everything had changed.

In retrospect, Loki thought they should’ve known. Someone should’ve thought that there would have been consequences from achieving Thor’s final, ultimate goal. But neither he nor Clint had even considered it. Neither of them had the gift of foresight.

He frowned. _Someone_ should’ve known, and he did know someone with the gift to see all possible futures...

He spread out his seidr in hopes it would lead him to his lost spear, but it was nowhere close. He could sense it was still upon Midgard, but he did not have time to search for it. Hopefully the Avengers or Heimdall could find it.

He sighed and pulled out the Tesseract. He looked over it, held it up, the faint light from the stars catching the edges of the cube.

He thought of what he was going to do next. The world had changed, everything had changed, but Loki was freer than he had ever been. Thanos was dead, damn the consequences.

Loki turned his gaze to the sky, to the stars, to the planets and realms beyond, to Asgard. Very, very far away, Heimdall looked back.

Loki activated the Tesseract and vanished.

* * *

Both Clint Barton and Lady Sif glared at Eir, the head healer to the throne of Asgard. She wanted to put Clint into a healing coma until Loki returned to Asgard, and neither of them believed that to be a good idea. Clint didn’t have the energy to argue with her, so he just curled up on the examination cot and glowered. Sif hadn’t seen Clint or Loki in just over six months, but she knew that if Clint was put under while Loki wasn’t there, there would be Hel to pay. Eir knew that as well, but apparently she wanted to push her luck.

Eir sighed. “This is what is best for you,” she told Clint.

Sif took a step forward, her spear pointing towards Eir, and she replied, “I believe you will find that Loki knows what is best for him.”

Eir turned back to the potion she was brewing for him, shaking her head. She picked up a golden stirring rod and used it to stir the potion a few times in a figure-eight motion, relenting enough to say, “Be you right or be you wrong, Lady Sif, it changes nothing. I am his healer and I know—”

“Nothing happens to the human without Prince Loki’s express approval,” Sif spoke over her. “You can give him potions or perform healing spells upon him, but he stays conscious.”

“Will he take potions?” Eir asked, removing the stirring rod as the potion finished turning from dark green to swirling, shimmering white. She cleaned the stirring rod on a cloth and then went over to a cabinet, pulling out a dozen or so small glass vials. Eir gave Clint a pointed look as she set them down, coming back around the brewing table to wait for his answer.

He opened his mouth and then shook his head, pulling out his phone to type.

Sif spoke up, “My understanding is that he refuses to eat. That is what Heimdall told me.”

“Well, yes,” Eir sighed, bending down to read Clint’s phone once he held it out. “You are emaciated,” she told Clint, who dropped his gaze and pulled his phone away from her. Eir held out her hands, golden healing seidr swirling around her fingers, and when Sif didn’t say anything, the seidr swept out and coated Clint from head to toe. He shivered at the feeling but didn’t fight it—not that he could, being as bereft of seidr as he was.

The three of them stayed quiet for a few minutes while Eir’s seidr worked on him. Finally she sighed and her seidr left him. Eir didn’t say anything right away, just looked at him, and then she went back to the potion and began ladling it into the vials.

Once she was halfway done, Eir finally spoke up, “You understand that attempting to kill yourself through starvation is very serious?”

Clint cut his gaze away from her. The potion smelled absolutely delicious, like a big hunk of roasted meat and potatoes or some raw fish and sweet sauce. His mouth started to water and he rubbed his hand over his mouth, eyes locked on the potion.

Finally, he nodded.

Eir floated a vial over to Sif, who plucked it out of the air and sniffed at it. “Oh,” the warrior murmured. “This is a refeeding potion.”

“Aye,” Eir replied, tone a bit short. “Do you know what that is?”

Clint thought about it, but trying to think made his muddled, foggy mind ache, so he just shook his head.

Sif took a small sip of it and then belched, turning to hold the vial out to Clint, chuckling a bit. “It’s safe,” Sif promised him. Clint gave her a wary look but took the vial; he hadn’t been hungry since Loki had left him, but the potion was the first thing that had made him miss food. He looked back at Eir for an explanation before drinking any of it.

“A refeeding potion is for starvation victims,” Eir told him, crossing her arms over her chest and giving him a stern look. “My spell tells me you are nearly forty pounds under the minimum healthy weight for your height. That does not include the various and necessary musculature you used to carry, nor any healthy layer of fat. Skin and bones is an understatement. The potion will add necessary calories to not overload your system while you begin the process of healthy eating again.” She gestured for Clint to drink it and he brought the vial up to his lips and his stomach suddenly recoiled, sinking deep in his stomach, and Clint gagged and shoved the vial back at Sif, who quickly grabbed it before he could spill it or drop it.

Clint dry heaved into his hands a couple times before his stomach settled, not looking up at either Aesir, cheeks flushed with shame. He curled into himself, tucking his hands against his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart through his bony rib cage.

Eir stepped closer, up along the side of the bed. A bit of golden seidr swirled out from her hands, catching Clint’s attention, and he looked up to watch it move in a long arc over top of him, a single tendril settling over his hair and then down his back, slipping over his spine.

“Has Loki been feeding you?” she asked him. Clint didn’t look at her but he gave a small nod. “Lady Sif, I assume Loki put you in charge of his recovery.”

“For the moment, yes.”

“Very well. I will need a report of everything he eats in a day. Stick to bland foods—boiled potatoes, white meat, no heavy sauces or spiced dishes. Small, frequent meals. Whatever he can keep down. He will start on a one full vial of the refeeding potion per day, half in the morning and half in the evening. It can be taken with or without food, but he should drink water with it. You must watch him for an hour after he takes it to make sure he does not throw it up. If it seems to be working, we will bump him up to one full vial twice per day to have him gain enough weight to be in the healthy range. Do you understand that so far?”

“Yes, Lady Eir.”

“Good.” Eir’s attention turned back to Clint. When she spoke to him, her voice was hard and sharp enough that it made him look up and listen. “Loki will kill you if you do not take care of yourself. You know that as well as I do. You are weak already with the breaking of the hirdman bond—which I did not even realize was _possible_ —and now you refuse to eat?” She shook her head. “He will lose his temper, he will grow bored, he will do _something_ , and Loki will be the inadvertent cause of your death. Do you wish to do that to him? Is that how you wish to die?”

Clint shook his head and picked his phone up from the bed. **If he kills me,** he typed out, **I want it to be on purpose.** He swallowed back sudden tears at the thought of Loki killing him on accident and looked to Sif and the vial of refeeding potion in her hand.

“Good. You are going to take care of yourself whether you like it or not. If not for you, then for Loki.”

A small smile flickered across Clint’s face and he typed on his phone, **Loki has been telling me that for years.**

Eir let out a small chuckle after reading it. “This may not be the best situation for you to finally learn self-care, but I will take what I can get.” She pointed at him. “If he does _anything_ to you now, it will kill you. We all know the Prince cares deeply for you, but I have known him his entire life, and he will eventually not be able to restrain himself any longer. The time will come when he will hurt you, and if your body is not capable of taking it, you will die. I will impress as much patience as I can upon him, but you must take care of yourself.”

Clint dropped his eyes to his lap and nodded.

Eir’s attention turned to Sif. “Ask the Prince to come see me once he returns to Asgard. I’ll also need to see the human again in no longer than a week, preferably sooner.” She finished decanting the potion into the vials and then conjured up a blue leather bag, corking the vials before placing them inside of the bag. She handed the bag over to Sif, who took it and placed it into the bag of holding on her waist.

Clint pulled out his hearing aids and slumped back against the pillows, rubbing his hands over his face. He was just so _tired_. His stomach hurt, his soul hurt, his heart hurt. He just wanted Loki.

He’d kind of thought everything broken in him would be fixed once Loki came back to him, but that hadn’t been the case. Everything still hurt, he was still broken and wrong and not who he was meant to be. With Loki back, his failures were even more obvious. He had served in his proper capacity for years and now he was unable; who was even to say Loki would even keep him now? He wasn’t even _useful._

Maybe it would be better for all of them if Loki did kill him, on accident or otherwise.

A small touch on his shoulder shocked him out of his thoughts. Clint swung his head around and glared up at Sif, who merely raised her eyebrows at him and then pointed one hand at her ears. Clint sighed at her but put his hearing aids back in, turning them on.

“We’re going back to Loki’s rooms,” Sif told him, gesturing for Clint to get up. “I believe King Balder will be joining us for dinner.”

Clint grimaced at the mention of food but slid off the bed, padding after Sif as she led him out of the healing wing, Einherjar opening the doors for them and then shadowing them as they walked through the palace halls. Clint glanced back at them with a frown and Sif caught his look, explaining that it was by order of the King. It went unsaid that Clint was unable to defend himself and needed someone else to do it for him. He was now a liability in the eyes of the King.

He didn’t want to think about that at all, but he could still hear the quiet footsteps of the Einherjar behind them. He wondered if they would listen to him if he told them to leave him alone—probably not; he hadn’t been well respected by them even before, what’s to say they’d listen to him now? But he wanted to.

Sif snapped her fingers a few times and Clint swung his head around to glower at her. She chuckled and told him, “I wouldn’t have to snap at you like a dog if you responded to your name. But you must add yourself to the wards.” Clint frowned at her and then turned around to see that they were in front of the massive doors to Loki’s private rooms. He reached out and touched one of the doors and smiled when seidr rippled out, the door opening on its own after a few moments. Behind him, Sif chuckled and followed him in. “I should’ve known,” she told him, pulling the door shut behind them. “No one else has been able to gain access to these rooms since the change—of course you would be able to go right in.”

Clint shrugged one shoulder and went into the bedroom, pulling the bag of holding off his belt and opening it to bring out his clothes and various other accutromont to begin unpacking. Sif watched him and didn’t offer to help, knowing well enough Clint would turn her down. She followed him to the closet, pausing in the doorway, eyes catching on Steve’s clothes hanging on the far wall of the closet. He had nearly ⅓ of the amount of clothes Loki had, and Clint knew Loki had even more clothes in pocket dimensions and in various other locations around his rooms.

“Are some of those missing?” Sif asked Clint, who had shoved his own clothes into a couple drawers and had started to dig around Loki’s clothes for something he could steal. Clint turned and looked across the closet at Steve’s clothes and shrugged.

He pulled out his phone and typed, **You’d know better than I would. I didn’t dress him.**

Sif stepped into the closet to peer at the screen and then she nodded, turning her attention back to Steve’s clothes. She paged through the various hanging vestments and uniforms and capes and she nodded to herself, pulling open a few drawers.

“Steve was definitely here,” she told Clint, who made a curious sound in the back of his throat mostly because he thought it was expected of him. “I packed him armor for the battle against Thanos, but nothing more than for a few days. Far more clothes than that are missing.”

**You don’t think it was the change?**

Sif shook her head. “Other things would be missing. Little changed in Loki’s rooms, didn’t you notice?”

Clint didn’t type anything, cutting his gaze away from Sif as she continued to poke through Steve’s clothes. He hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t even looked.

“He must have come here before vanishing.” Sif nodded to herself, turning to look down at Clint. “That helps the timeline I’ve been building the past few months. Once Loki returns, I’ll tell him.”

Clint grabbed one of Loki’s capes and dragged it out of the closet, pulling it over his shoulders as he kicked off his shoes and yanked off his pants and shirt and then crawled into bed. Sif settled a few furs over top of him and then pulled over a chair, sitting down in it and crossing one leg over the other.

“Dinner is in a few hours,” Sif told him, her voice soft. “I will wake you when it’s time.”

Clint nodded and pulled out his hearing aids, relaxing as the world went quiet. He pressed his face into Loki’s cape and breathed in the scent of seidr, letting his eyes slide shut. 

He dreamt of a disembodied hand, skin and muscle long fallen away to reveal bone and sinew, stroking through his hair.

* * *

Dinner with King Balder was a quiet affair. They ate in a small, private hall near Loki’s rooms, given that the wards did not allow Balder entry into Loki’s chambers, and Balder and Sif caught each other up to what they had been doing the past few months, Clint listening but not particularly processing any of it.

Sif had been searching for Steve, and she had wrangled the Warriors Three into the search as well. Once Loki had reappeared on Midgard—apparently Balder had sent out a few Einherjar to search for him as well, obviously to no avail—Heimdall had told the Warriors Three and Sif to come back to Asgard. Sif had arrived first, and the other three were due to arrive back in the next few days. Sif had no luck, but Heimdall had told her that Volstagg, at least, had some news of Steve.

Balder had been busy with the ramifications of the change—fixing or redoing various treaties or trade agreements, along with other contracts or settlements made with other Realms. He had also needed to put quite a bit of energy into dealing with his sister, Hela, who was furious with Loki for some deal he had apparently reneged on, as well as sending Sif and the Warriors Three and Einherjar out into the Nine Realms and beyond to search for his two missing Princes. Various other things around Asgard had changed as well, and he had no time for anything other than solving all of the problems caused by the change. He was looking forward to talking with Loki about where he had been—it would have been rather useful to have his mage and Prince with him during that time, although Balder had a suspicion that Loki had quite the reason for his absence. Loki was not one to flounce off and shirk his duties without reason.

Other things had changed in Asgard, some for the good and some for the bad. He still had his chosen advisors—Byleistr, Brige, Nold—and all of his traitorous advisors were still dead, but some dead or banished had returned to Asgard. Tyr had returned from exile on Alfheim, for one, which had made life on Asgard rather interesting. Skadi and Njodr had reappeared, same with Ullr—many gods from many realms had reappeared on Asgard, and Balder had been faced with the sinking horror of how many Thor had killed in order to achieve his goals, how many lives had been altered and changed by the spell, and just how many had been reverted when the spell broke.

Sometimes Balder wondered if Loki had known what would happen, but looking at Clint now, sunken in on himself and skinnier than Balder realized a human could become, he knew that this was not a sacrifice Loki would make. He would not leave for six months and let Clint Barton turn into a shadow of his former self if he knew what was going to happen when Thanos died. He would not leave Balder to fix Asgard by himself if he knew what would happen.

Sif pushed the half-empty vial of refeeding potion across the table to Clint, who glared at it as if he could set it ablaze. He had picked at his food, which was just a bit of boiled meat and some unsalted, unbuttered bread, and had not even touched his watered-down mead or ale. Balder had paid little attention to his eating habits before the change, but he remembered Clint as quite the hearty eater, and had attempted to school away his disappointed frown with little success as Clint seemed unable to eat. But Clint looked between Steve’s personal guard, who was one of the most accomplished and valiant warriors of Asgard, as well as Asgard’s King and Allfather, and knew it was a fight he had no chance of winning. So he uncorked the vial and swallowed it down in a few uncomfortable gulps, gagging afterwards and then gulping down the glass of water Sif pointed him to.

Balder reached across the table to snatch up the empty vial and he sniffed at it. “Eir brewed this?” he questioned Sif, who nodded. “Very high quality potion. She does her station and Loki high honor with a brew such as this.”

Clint shifted uncomfortably and didn’t look at either of them.

Balder put the vial down and clasped his hands on the table in front of him, ignoring the servants that bustled in to begin clearing the table to bring in the food for the next course. “We have spoken much of the change on Asgard and the Realms beyond, but not of Midgard. Perhaps you would honor this old god with your voice, little human?”

Clint ducked his chin but looked up at Balder through his lashes. He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut, shaking his head. He pulled his phone out of his pocket with a shaking hand, and tapped at the screen for a few moments before holding it out.

**I don’t speak.**

“Ah,” Balder murmured after reading it. “What a pity.”

Clint just nodded shamefully.

“Did Eir say anything of this?” Balder asked Sif, who shook her head.

“I believe she was more worried about his…” Sif trailed off, waving a hand to encompass all of Clint. “Lack of eating, for one. Keeping him alive is more important than whether or not he speaks, I would say.”

Balder merely nodded. “When does he return to her?”

“No longer than a week. I am assuming Loki will drag him back to her himself once he truly gets a good look at how bad Clint is doing.” Sif sighed, looking at Clint and the way he was folded in on himself. “How much time did Loki spend with you?”

**He’s busy.**

Sif shook her head. “I think you pushed him away and he has so much to do that he let you, but he’s going to be here soon and your time has run out.”

Clint glared at her. It wasn’t like she was _wrong_ , he just didn’t like thinking about it. He had been fighting to stay alive for so long that when Loki finally came back, he’d been too relieved and too exhausted to even think about trying to explain himself. Clint had probably spent more time asleep in the past week or two than he had in the past six months, simply out of sheer exhaustion from keeping himself alive. Maybe he and Loki hadn’t had enough time together, but surely that was only because Loki had to get caught up with everything that had happened in his absence and for no other reason—

All Clint wanted was for things to go back to the way they were, the way they were meant to be. He wasn’t supposed to be like this, useless and weak and a drain on everyone around him. He couldn’t even _talk_ , for God’s sake. He couldn’t _do_ anything.

Sif and Balder spoke for a few more minutes while Clint tuned them out, thinking, predictably, about Loki. He didn’t really know how long he’d been on Asgard—he’d kind of lost the ability to track time since the change—but it couldn’t have been any longer than a day or two, but he wanted Loki so bad it felt like he would die from it, from the loneliness. His mind ached to be alone, his soul hurt, his very bones felt brittle and weak. He just wanted _Loki._

Balder escorted them back to Loki’s rooms, the wards not letting him enter, so he stayed in the doorway as Sif herded Clint back through the front rooms back to the bedroom. She got him undressed and in one of Steve’s sweaters and then in bed underneath the furs and curled up with Loki’s cape, and then joined Balder back in the doorway.

“How did he survive so long?” Balder finally asked her, not bothering to hide the concern on his face or in his voice. “I have never seen one so thin.”

Sif sighed. “Heimdall told me that Loki got him to eat and even managed to put a few pounds on him,” she confided in Balder, stepping out into the hall and closing the door to Loki’s rooms behind her. Balder leaned across the far wall and rubbed a hand over his forehead. “He also said that those on Midgard say Clint has not spoken for many years in this new timeline, and was not able to find a cause.”

Balder thoughtfully stroked his hand through his beard. “What of his wife? The children?”

She shook her head. “Gone. The children never existed and he and Laura never married.” Heartbreak showed clear on Sif’s face for a few moments before she remembered herself and forcibly cleared it away, pushing her own grief away until she could deal with it until another time.

Balder copied her, shaking his own great head, unsure of what even to say. Finally he questioned, “Is that the reason he attempted to kill himself?”

“King?”

“The scars on his arms. They come from only one cause.”

“I did not ask,” Sif told him, “and I would...Loki would consider it a trespass if I directly questioned Clint about such a thing.”

Nodding, Balder reached out and patted her on the shoulder. He leaned in closer to tell her, “Loki does not have Steve nor Clint to temper him now. Does your oath to Steve go far enough to take up that role if Loki requires it?”

Sif grimaced reflexively at the thought. Her duty was to Steve, and he was nowhere to be found. If her sense of duty was not so great, she could easily have gone back to the Einherjar to train, or even to another Realm, but she had gone off to search for Steve, and she felt as obligated to Clint and Loki as she had to Steve.

She and Clint had talked about that, albeit briefly, before the battle with Thanos. Sif had surprised herself with the depth and breadth of her loyalty to Steve, almost as if it had happened out of her control, as if Steve Rogers was not a man who deserved every ounce of herself she was able to give. In the grand scheme of things, she had known him for such a small amount of time, merely, what, a year or two? But she doubted that it mattered; Sif had never been someone to argue against who she was. She had spent her life in service to the crown, as a friend and shield-brother to Thor, and now she gave that life to Steve.

If Steve was not available, if he was lost, then he would want her to help Loki, and by association, Clint. Steve would not want her to sit idly by while someone he cared about suffered, especially suffered how Clint was suffering. He would do anything and everything he was able to alleviate the pain. She had no less of a duty than that.

Sif looked up at Balder. “No,” she told him, “but I will help.” Loki’s temper and fractious moods were not her duty, and she would not put herself in harm’s way to please him, but she could do as much as she was able. 

Balder nodded. “Good,” he said. “Keep me updated.”

“Of course, King.”

He clapped her on the shoulder again and then left, making his way down the hall. Sif waited until he rounded the corner to enter Loki’s rooms again, pushing open the door and, after ducking her head into the bedroom to check on Clint, she dropped to one of the various couches in one of the various parlors and held her head in her hands.

Sif was a warrior of Asgard. She had defeated countless enemies, thousands of them throughout her life. She had been at the front of the surge that defeated Asgard’s greatest enemies, spilled the first blood on many a realm, had fought and fought and fought. She had been part of battles that lasted decades, fought for years without end, and had not once complained nor felt the need. She was a warrior. 

But this...to watch her friend and ally and comrade disintegrate into someone she did not even know? This was the worst thing ever asked of her, and she would do it without question, but at what _cost?_ What else would she lose? Who else would she lose?

She shook her head at herself, pushed her hair back from her face and sat up straight. She pushed to her feet and walked over to a table, pouring herself a glass of water. Sif drank it all and set the glass back down, checking on Clint one last time before calling a servant to bring her her sleep clothes and a blanket so she could sleep on one of the couches in the parlor.

She was asleep by the time Loki returned to Asgard, and she did not stir as he strode by her, barely giving her a glance on his way to Clint.


	2. part two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A talk. A spell. A reunion.

The man tied up in the chair across from her was familiar, and it took Sif a minute to place him as she sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“Am I meant to keep an eye on you?” she asked, looking for her clothes. A servant had folded her linens and put her vestments and armor on a side table, and Sif glanced at the bound man before shrugging and stripping down to her underclothes to change.

Dr. Stephen Strange glared at her. She assumed Loki had been the one to bring him in and then bind each of his fingers individually and tie his arms down to the arms of the chair. He was tied with some peculiar manner of rope that, when she reached out to test the strength of it, was infused with seidr. Satisfied he wouldn’t be going anywhere, Sif excused herself to use the restroom and freshen up, and when she returned, Loki was standing in front of Stephen, hands clasped behind his back, staring down his nose at the witch. He must’ve returned while she was sleeping. Sneaky little bastard.

Loki looked simultaneously better than she had expected and also like he was reaching the end of his tether. He didn’t look quite as put together as she was used to, and there was a peculiar sharpness to his face that she hadn’t seen before, but he regarded Stephen calmly and with only a mild bit of outward malice.

He gave Sif a vague gesture of acknowledgement and then turned his attention back to Stephen.

“Get Clint up, would you?” Loki asked, not paying much attention to her. Sif raised an eyebrow at him but obliged, going into the bedroom, where Clint was curled up at the foot of the bed, drooling onto Loki’s cape, fast asleep.

It was difficult to wake someone up without touching them, especially if they were deaf, and Sif poked around the bedroom until she found a loose arrow and used that to prod Clint awake. Or, rather, she tried, and Clint continued to sleep on. For a moment, she was worried that he wouldn’t wake up at all, and then he jerked awake, frantically scrambling back away from her as if he didn’t know who she was.

His mouth formed Loki’s name but no sound came out. Sif pointed into the living room, where Loki had started pacing, and Clint frowned at her, recognition slowly filtering over his face. He gave her a wary look and then clambered out of bed, grimacing at the stress sweat that had dried on his body overnight. He waved Sif off when she went to help him to the bathroom and she made sure to see him safely into the shower before rejoining Loki and the witch in the living room.

Sif picked up her spear and stood by, waiting for direction.

Loki continued to pace in front of Stephen, not saying anything.

It took quite a long time for Clint to join them in the parlor, dropping down onto the nearby couch. He was wearing a pair of Steve’s linens and one of Loki’s tank tops, both of them hanging off his emaciated frame. A servant quietly and quickly brought him a plate of food and he stared glumly at it.

Loki finally seemed to notice him and Sif took note of the way his eyes tightened and his mouth turned down as his eyes traced over Clint’s gaunt, skeletal form. Loki held out a hand and Clint’s hearing aids appeared in his palm, and he stepped up next to Clint, holding them out.

Clint sighed at him but did as he was asked, sliding his hearing aids in and turning them on, and then he shoved the plate of food aside and leaned forward to push his head into Loki’s stomach. A shaking hand came up to tenderly push through his long, wet hair. Clint gave a quiet sigh of relief, eyes falling shut, and twisted his hands in Loki’s tunic, holding on for dear life.

Sif watched them for a minute, or perhaps longer, feeling as if time slipped away while the two of them were together. Clint’s condition looked even poorer when he was in Loki’s arms, and Loki looked like he had been searching for peace and been unable to find it, as if he had come home and home was no longer there. It made her war-hardened heart ache to see them.

It took Stephen grumbling something behind his gag that had Loki finally pulling away from Clint, a peculiar look briefly crossing his face as if remembering there were others in the room with them. Clint curled up against the side of the couch and when he refused to eat, Sif handed him the vial of refeeding potion and a glass of water. Loki snatched the vial away from him before he could drink any of it and sniffed and tasted a bit of it, as if thinking Sif wanted to poison Clint and she would’ve waited until Loki was there to witness it instead of any of the other countless chances she’d had.

But it was Loki, and he wouldn’t be who he was if he wasn’t endlessly paranoid and scheming, so she took no offense, and she rolled her eyes at Loki’s suspicious look before he handed the potion back and then turned his attention back to Stephen.

Clint drank half the potion and the full glass of water and then shoved the vial and the glass onto the table in front of him and shuddered. Loki watched him for a moment and then reached into a pocket dimension to pull out Stephen’s Cloak of Levitation and wrapped it around him. Clint curled up underneath it and tried not to fall asleep. Stephen grumbled behind his gag but Loki’s sharp look quieted him back down.

“I’ve been thinking,” Loki began, starting to pace again. Sif glanced between all of them and leaned her spear against the back of the couch and took up Clint’s uneaten plate and began to clear it. “You are the Keeper of the Time Stone, same as I am the Keeper of the Space Stone, and now the Soul Stone. Not only does this mean we are it’s master, but we also keep it. We keep it safe from those who would use it against us, or would cause harm with it. Part of our duty to the Infinity Stone we keep is to use it in a way that benefits not only ourselves, but those around us.” A small, sly look slid across Loki’s face and he abruptly stopped walking, looking down his nose at Stephen. “That is what we are meant to do, of course. I do something a bit different, and so it seems you do as well.”

Stephen’s eyes narrowed.

“I thought your remark that your duty to see time well cared for and established the last time we met was a bit strange, if you will, but I thought little of it. You are a peculiar witch, after all, and humans are so...well, _odd_. Nasty little things, the lot of you. Squirming around on your realm like you are anything other than slightly advanced worms. But, you, Dr. Strange, are a particularly advanced little worm, aren’t you? A human strong enough to wield an Infinity Stone. Not only that, but to Keep the stone…” Loki trailed off, shaking his head, tutting a bit. “And the Time Stone has a very peculiar ability, does it not?”

On the couch, Clint frowned and sat up straight. He looked around for his phone and let out a frustrated noise when he remembered he’d left it in the bedroom. Sif sighed at him and got up to go get it for him, digging around the messed up furs to find it hidden behind a pillow. She brought it back into the living room to give back to Clint, who gave her a small smile as he took it from her, carefully making sure he didn’t touch her. Sif looked down at him for a moment, eyes tracing over the line of his sharp jawline, his sunken cheeks, the jaggedness of his neck and the way his thin shoulders poked through the Cloak, sharp even through the fine fabric. 

Clint typed something out and Loki stepped over to peer down at the screen. He raised an eyebrow at Clint and something mean curled up one side of his mouth. “Is that so?” he murmured, turning back to Stephen.

“My question to you, Dr. Strange, is: did you know? Did you know and not tell anyone?”

The seidr gag fell away from Stephen’s mouth and he worked his jaw for a few moments, glaring at Loki and not saying anything.

Unbothered, Loki continued, “I’d believed you honest when we spoke last, witch. But my mind works endlessly, a machine that never runs out of fuel. I did a bit of thinking about the repercussions from Thanos’s death.” He began to pace again. “See, I cannot see into the future. I have a book of Frigga’s prophecies, but they are not straightforward. One must study them to understand them, and often when you think you know what they mean, something quite different comes to pass. Thor was the one with the gift of foresight between us; he had prophetic dreams, dreams of fire and fury and the end of all things.” Loki paused as he thought about that, looking down at the floor.

“For all of my gifts of seidr, prophecy was never one of them,” he said finally. “And I have rarely been troubled by that. Nor does that change now.” His green eyes looked at each of them and then locked on Stephen. “Which means I could not have foretold what would happen when Thanos died. But the Keeper of the Time Stone, the master of time itself? The one who has the duty to keep the timeline in place, to watch over the stream of time and make certain it is following the correct path? How could he not know what would happen?”

Stephen finally opened his mouth to answer, “You were supposed to choose one of the doors.”

One of Loki’s eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”

Stephen cleared his throat, slowly licking his lips as he put his thoughts to right. Finally he said, voice a bit raspy, “None of the futures I saw had you returning from Yggdrasil. You chose a door every time.”

Slowly, very slowly, Loki began to smile. Stephen stiffened in his bonds, staring at Loki, who stepped right up in front of him, nearly brushing his boots against Stephen’s own. “How many futures did you see?” Loki asked, his voice soft and dangerous enough that Sif stood up from the couch to grab her spear, readying herself for whatever happened next.

“Enough,” Stephen replied shortly, but expounded quickly when green seidr fire abruptly engulfed Loki’s clenched fists. “Nearly 1000. You chose the doors every time.”

“What happened when I chose a door?”

“The timeline ended.”

Loki nodded, cutting his eyes away from Stephen to look back at Clint, who was staring at the two of them in shock. Loki glanced at Sif and then back to Stephen, suddenly seeming to realize the seidr fire about his hands and forcibly disappearing it. “So all you needed to do was wait,” Loki said. “Would you have gone on?”

Stephen sighed. “Not necessarily,” he replied. “But neither would have anyone else.” His gaze flickered to Clint and then back to Loki.

“Ah,” Loki murmured. “So what happened to those left behind mattered little because it would inevitably end. The suffering of those you cared about did not matter.”

“You had already made the decision,” Stephen told him. “All I had to do was wait until the Norns closed the door behind you.”

Loki nodded. He paced a few steps in front of Stephen and then stopped again. “Whatever makes you believe that I would do what the Norns showed you I would do?” he asked finally, his voice low and tight.

Stephen blinked a few times, pulling against his binds. “The Norns?” he repeated slowly.

“The Norns control the fate of all Aesir and all of those in the Nine Realms,” Loki informed him, “or so it is said in our reckoning. If time is a river, the Norns are situated at the beginning, the middle, and the end. Or, rather, at what was, what is, and what will be. Prophetic power comes from their blessing, in particular Skuld’s blessing. But I suppose that is unimportant, is it not? What matters is that the Norns crafted a future for me, for all of us, and for all your skills, you could not see past it. I forced their hand and refused the path laid out for me, as I have done all my life, and demanded to be brought back.” Loki’s mouth curled in a smile. “How terribly dull of you to think otherwise.” He reached forward and cut through Stephen’s bonds with a seidr knife, letting the witch go free. "I had a plan for cutting you to pieces and keeping you alive for a good while in glass jars if you didn't tell me what I wanted. Pity."

Stephen shook his hands and arms out, shakingly massaging feeling back into his fingers, sitting up straight and rigid in the armchair. Loki stepped back, watching him, and then Stephen looked up, their eyes clashing. For a moment, Sif thought Stephen was going to surge forward and attempt to fight him, but the witch merely settled back in the chair and did not break eye contact.

Loki looked away first, turning his attention to Clint, who was dozing off against the arm of the couch. He stepped over to cup Clint’s head in his hand, brushing his thumb over Clint’s cheekbone.

Sif cleared her throat from behind the couch. “Lady Eir asked for you to speak with her at your earliest convenience.”

“What else did she say?” Loki queried, frowning as Clint’s eyes finally opened and he looked blearily up at Loki.

“He is currently on half a vial of refeeding potion twice per day, as well as small, bland meals as often as he will eat them. I am to keep track of everything he consumes, along with whatever activity he has partaken in. She wished to see him weekly to ascertain his condition and confirm he is gaining weight. Once he’s gained at least twenty pounds, she’ll start him on mind soothing potions. She also…” Sif sighed. “Eir was very clear that you may inadvertently harm him if he does not take care of himself. Balder asked if I would be willing to take his place, if you needed it but—”

Loki’s grimace answered that question for her and Sif cut herself off. “I can manage myself, thank you,” Loki replied tightly. “And I doubt you would provide the...required response.”

Sif’s own grimace made Loki smirk at her. “No,” she told him. “I doubt I would. Whatever _that_ may be.”

Loki chuckled lightly, tugging affectionately at Clint’s hair and brushing the fingers of his free hand over Clint’s sharp face. “Let’s go see Eir,” he told Clint, who nodded tiredly, hiding a yawn behind one hand. “And then Balder.”

“Loki,” Stephen started from behind him, and Loki turned his head to glare at him over his shoulder.

“I already have a room made up for you,” Loki told him. “You will wait there and then you and I will speak.”

“And if I do not?”

Loki released Clint and turned fully to Stephen. “I would have believed, at this point, that you know I am not to be tested.” When Stephen elected not to say anything in return, Loki called for a servant to show him to his private, warded quarters, and then Loki excused himself to go change. Clint slumped over on the couch, stretching out over the cushions, and Sif sighed down at him and went to go get him some clothes. She didn’t ask Loki if he wanted assistance changing; no need to truly spark his ire.

Sif paused in the open doorway to the closet, watching Loki as he traced a hand over some of Steve’s clothes, his long capes and vestments still hanging against the wall. She gave him a moment, casting her gaze away from the heartbroken look on his face, and then she said, “I believe he may have come here after leaving Midgard. Some clothes were missing. None other could have entered your wards.”

“They are only keyed to myself and Steve,” Loki murmured, stroking along the fine red cloth of one of Steve’s capes, a frown furrowed between his eyebrows. He was in clean linens, a new outfit floating behind him, his long hair as greasy and oily as ever, flowing over his shoulders. “None else could have entered without one of us.”

“Clint seemed to have no trouble,” Sif offered up, watching as Loki pulled one of Steve’s capes off the wall and held it up, still frowning at it.

“Our souls are the same,” Loki told her. “Regardless of what was taken from him, we are interchangeable.” He paused for a moment and then looked to her. “Did you know I was taken into the Soul Stone upon Thanos’s death?”

“Sire, I...no.” She shook her head.

“It was where I disappeared to after Clint succeeded in killing him. Thor’s soul was sacrificed for the cause of defeating Thanos, and once that objective was achieved, the Keeper of the Stone was pulled inside of it.”

“Clint killed Thanos,” Sif said, a bit confused.

Loki nodded slightly, spreading Steve’s cape out and smoothing one hand over the embroidery on the back. “And the Stone pulled _me_ in,” he continued. “Only to find Thor there.”

Sif blinked a few times, trying to disseminate that bit of information. _Thor?_ But how…

“I will not tell you what happened, because it is not important,” Loki said. “But what is important is that even though Thanos had ripped whatever it was out of him, we were still so indistinguishable that an object as powerful as the Soul Stone could not tell us apart. Which is how he was able to go so easily through my wards.” Perhaps she would get the answer later; she was used to Loki’s tendency to not explain things until he pleased. He held Steve’s cape out towards her and Sif frowned at him and took it, looking it over. “I wish for you to go to the royal tailor and question them on why my husband’s capes are red.”

“Sire?”

“Beat the answer out of them if you must,” Loki said, turning to summon some of Clint’s clothes and he shoved those at Sif as well. “Ask them why red, out of every color they could have _fucking_ chosen. Now get out and leave me be.”

Sif took a few steps back and the door to the closet slammed shut in her face. She shook her head and juggled with the various clothes for a moment before getting a hold of all of them and walking back into the living room. Stephen was gone and Clint was asleep again.

She was starting to get extremely concerned, but swallowed the feeling down and dropped Clint’s clothes on top of his head to wake him up. He jerked awake, arms flailing as he frantically shoved the clothes off his head, nearly getting tangled in a few of them, and he sat up, chest heaving as his eyes rolled around in his skull, finally landing on her, Steve’s cape in her hands.

“Get dressed,” Sif told him. “You need to be at least somewhat presentable.”

Clint rolled his eyes at her but fumbled with the clothes for a minute before Sif’s patience ran out and she moved around the couch to help him. His eyes caught Steve’s cape in her hands and he frowned up at her. Sif shook her head and set it aside, helping Clint pull off his tank top and sweatpants and into a loose-fitting grey tunic and comfortable black pants. Sif handed him a pair of socks and sighed at him as he struggled to pull them on, and then gestured for him to stand as she slid his belt through the loops on his pants and then cinched them tight. Clint’s fingers brushed over the spot on his belt where the ruby-hilted dagger would’ve hung and he dodged Sif’s gaze, turning back to look at the bedroom, waiting for Loki. Clint wavered on his feet and waved her off when she tried to help, grabbing the edge of the couch to keep himself upright.

It took a few more minutes for Loki to exit the bedroom, barely glancing over the both of them as he finished putting himself together—fixing his cuffs, resettling his cape, wiping his boots clean. Next to Sif, Clint let out a shuddering sigh and walked slowly around the couch, looking up at Loki, something sad and tired on his face. He had Stephen’s Cloak in his hands, idly petting the fabric with his fingers, and Loki took it from him, tucking it away in a pocket dimension.

Loki summoned a pair of boots for him and Clint leaned against the back of the couch as Loki knelt before him, gently lifting up each socked foot in turn to slide his boots on and lace them up. Sif looked away, picking up Steve’s cape and busying herself with folding it up, and when she looked back, Loki was standing again, wrapping an arm around Clint’s waist and helping him out of his rooms.

Clint walked slowly alongside Loki as they made their way back to the healing wing. Loki had thought he would be getting better, but it almost seemed like he was getting worse. Loki’s concern was that he had spent six months fighting to stay alive and was completely out of energy now that Loki had finally returned to him. He would have to ask Eir her thoughts.

Sif escorted them all the way to the infirmary and then left to go speak with the royal tailors as Loki helped Clint onto a floating cot in a private room. He gently stroked his fingers over Clint’s troubled face and Clint sighed up at him, pushing his face into Loki’s hands.

“How fares your human?” came Eir’s voice from behind them, her stern voice pitched low and soft.

Loki pulled Clint’s hearing aids out before he answered. “Poorly,” he said, turning to her. “What did your assessments tell you?”

“He is dangerously underweight,” Eir informed him, stopping at the bottom of the floating cot and looking down at Clint, who had fallen asleep again, leaning up against Loki’s side. She sent out a bit of golden sparkling seidr to settle over him and Loki’s mouth thinned, but he didn’t stop her. “The exhaustion comes partially from malnutrition and partially from…” Eir trailed off and looked firmly at Loki. “I was told Thanos used the Reality Stone upon him. Do you know precisely what was taken?”

“Unfortunately, no. Not exactly. I have seen his soul, however, and it is lessened. Is that what could be causing the exhaustion?”

“Perhaps,” Eir allowed. “What remains of his seidr? I cannot see any of it.”

“I fear that is because there is none.”

She nodded. “Have you any chance of replacing it?”

Loki glanced at the sleeping archer and then flicked his fingers, a silencing ward expanding out and then settling over the room. Eir’s eyebrows drew together but she didn’t comment. “I have been funneling seidr into him whenever we are together,” Loki said. “He seems incapable of retaining it.”

Eir made a curious sound and frowned slightly as she thought. Finally she said, “Perhaps seidr bands?”

Loki looked back to Clint and ran his fingers over Clint’s bare neck. “Perhaps,” he murmured, something beginning to tick and take place and form in the back of his mind. “What else did you find?”

“Every bond he held is broken, which I presume you already knew.” Loki nodded. “The hirdman bond is meant to be unbreakable; that is the spell’s entire purpose. To break it should not even be possible.”

“It was not more powerful than the Reality Stone,” Loki commented mildly. “As can be seen.” He sighed and gently lifted Clint so that he was leaning against the propped pillows at the head of the bed, and then with a careless glance back at Eir, he sat on the edge of the bed and rested his hands on Clint’s chest. Green seidr flickered over his fingers as his hands sunk underneath Clint’s skin.

Eir took a few respectful steps back, pressing herself against the far wall, making sure that not a single bit of her seidr was left on Clint’s skin for whatever Loki was doing to him. The pressure changed in the room, Loki using some incredible spell, summoning massive amounts of power, pushing every single gram of it inside of Clint, who did not even wake or stir. The very room felt like it was shaking and about to come apart around them. Eir grabbed on to a nearby chair to hold herself upright, watching in shock as Loki summoned more seidr than she believed possible, not even shaking with the effort.

Finally, when it was done, Loki stood up, pulling his hands out of Clint’s chest and looking down at him. He was not even out of breath or tired from the exertion. “I brought him here because I thought it may kill him,” Loki told her, not looking away from Clint’s sleeping face. “But it seems it did not take.”

“What was it, may I ask?” Eir asked, a bit subdued in her shock.

Loki did not answer right away, smoothing Clint’s tunic down and fiddling with his belt, as if he as unable to stop touching him. Finally, he told her, “He seems incapable of retaining any seidr. Even a normal human can carry a bit of seidr inside of them. I attempted to infuse him with as much as his body would take, but it...it did not work.”

“You thought it may kill him because his body would reject it.”

Loki nodded. His shoulders slumped and he dropped his head to bury it in his hands. Eir thought to reassure him, to comfort him, but she had known Loki long enough to know that he would take it as an insult. So she stayed back against the wall, and averted her gaze, and waited for him to calm.

He finally dropped his hands from his face, conjuring up a washcloth to pat over his face. Finally he said, without looking at her, “His body did not even care to reject it. It is simply incapable of absorbing it.”

Eir nodded, did not say anything. She could almost hear the gears turning in Loki’s relentless mind; wondered if it was even able to fix. Her skills lay more in treating physical and mental maladies, not seidr problems such as this. What Loki was suggesting was unheard of; Clint should’ve been dead months ago. To even survive what had been done to him should not have been possible.

“How does he live if he has no seidr?” Loki asked, turning to look at her, his face drawn in agony. “How has he even made it this long? And how did I not _see_ until now?”

Eir stepped forward, silently asking if she could cast a spell, and Loki just sighed and nodded. He tenderly brushed Clint’s hair off his forehead and then watched as she held her hands, shrouded in swirling white and gold seidr, over his chest and stomach.

She sought what Loki had always sought: the reason why. Eir had known from a young age she would be a healer, would spend her life in the pursuit of helping people survive and heal from their various ailments, would explore the reason behind the pain and work to live with it, if not overcome it. She had always known there was a reason behind everything—the trauma that explained the action, the sword that caused the wound, the poison that produced the death. She enjoyed her duty to the crown, enjoyed the daily puzzles, even the endless parade of wounds she had to bandage and heal from Einherjar training regiments, and she liked the challenge that came from the palace’s seidrmadrs and their new spellwork that brought her new, never before seen problems to solve.

She had never, in all her years, seen anything like Clint Barton.

She supposed that was understandable, given that Loki had taken such a shining to him.

“I did not even see this before,” Eir told Loki, her voice quiet, as if worried Clint would wake. “I have never seen anything such as this, Loki.”

Loki sighed. It was world weary and very unlike him, but when Eir chanced a glance up at his face, she could see that there was little strength left in him, at least for the moment, for his usual pretense. She did not say anything and waited for him to speak, and when he did, he sounded exhausted. “He should be dead.”

Eir wanted to nod, but did not. Instead she said, “I feel that it is solely by your grace that he is not.”

Loki quirked an eyebrow at her, something curling his mouth. “By the grace of God,” he murmured, waving a hand through _her_ seidr and dissipating it. Eir’s mouth dropped open but Loki did not even seem to notice, pulling Clint’s hearing aids out of the ether and setting a hand on his chest to wake him. Clint surged into wakefulness with a tortured gasp, recoiling away from Eir and scrambling into Loki’s arms like a beaten animal.

“Hush,” Loki told him, gently wrapping his long arms around Clint’s shaking shoulders. “I am here. Nothing will hurt you.”

Clint nodded against Loki’s chest, taking in rasping, heaving breaths, slowly calming down. He finally pulled back and sent Eir a sheepish, embarrassed look, but Loki took his face in his hands and asked him, “Did you know?”

Clint frowned up at him.

“You are bereft. You should not be alive.”

Clint’s frown deepened. He patted his pockets for his phone and when he could not find it, he held out a hand until Loki summoned it and placed it in his palm. He typed out, **You told me to stay alive. That you’d come back for me.**

Loki shook his head. “I said no such thing,” he replied softly.

**I cannot be killed in a way that matters.**

“You _can_ be killed,” Loki hissed, restraining the urge to take Clint by the shoulders and shake sense into him. “You are weak.”

**You have not allowed my death,** Clint finally typed.

Loki took one of Clint’s wrists in one of his hands and held it up, motioning to the self-harm scars on his inner arm. “What is this, then? Why would you do this? Why would you take yourself from me?”

Clint looked up at him, face calm and nearly expressionless. **Because you left. You came back to me and then you left. I didn’t know how to live without you.**

Loki let out a sigh of frustration. “But you stay alive _now_ because I won’t let you die?”

Clint nodded, eyes tracing over Loki’s face. He struggled with himself for a minute before typing out, **I’m yours. For the rest of it.**

Loki nodded, hands compulsively squeezing Clint’s thin shoulders, ducking his head down to press their foreheads together. Clint’s body softened, his eyes sliding shut, and when Loki pulled back, he slumped forward, pressing his face to Loki’s stomach.

“Hush,” Loki murmured down to Clint. “I will take care of you.”

He held back his tears.

Eir watched them and wondered what kind of mad devotion would lead to this.

* * *

A quiet voice woke Stephen Strange up from his uncomfortable nap on the bed in his provided quarters. He sat up and found Loki standing at the foot of his bed, staring at him, and Clint Barton was off to the side, curled up in an armchair that hadn't been there before. Stephen sighed at them and pushed the covers off himself, rubbing a shaking hand over his tired face.

"What?" he asked Loki. "What do you want?"

"The Time Stone," Loki told him. "I wish to see if it works." His glance at Clint told Stephen all he needed to know about the recipient of the use of the Eye of Agamotto.

Stephen followed his gaze to Clint, who seemed to be barely half-awake, and he shook his head. "It won't work," he told Loki. "Thor's spell broke and erased all of the changes he made. Everything reverted to how it would have been before Thor's interference. There's no going back, not for him, not for any of us."

Loki's sharp eyes narrowed. "Is that so," he murmured.

Might as well get it over with. "I already tried," Stephen told him. "I realized the entire world changed and you don't think I tried anything? I broke every rule we have to try and fix it." He pushed to his feet and stood at the edge of the bed, curled his shaking hands into fists at his sides. His shoulders felt naked without his Cloak; Loki had taken it from him when he had stolen him from the Sanctum Sanctorum. Loki hadn't gone so far as to directly _say_ he'd taken the Cloak as blackmail until he got what he wanted from Stephen, but it had been heavily implied. Loki raised an eyebrow at him. "I did not just sit idly by while the man I love tried to die!"

Loki took a few steps backwards and propped a hip up on the arm of the chair Clint was curled up in, clasped his hands in his lap. "Yet you left him."

"Because I could not _fix it,_ " Stephen hissed out. "And because it didn't matter. A few months of suffering is nothing compared to non-existence. I did all I could; read every book, spoke to every sorcerer, I did it all. And it changed nothing. You were going to choose a door and this timeline would end. That was it." He shook his head, let out a breath. "I did all I could and it meant nothing. There was no other end for this world other than you closing a door on it."

"Yet we are still here," Loki told him, eyebrows raised. "You fell for the Norns trick as did everyone else." He shook his head. "Pah. How boring of you, Stephen. How mundane."

"We've established that," Stephen hissed out. "I'm fixing my mistakes. Or trying to, anyway."

"As am I," Loki replied. He reached out one hand and gently ran his fingers over Clint's long hair. Clint shifted closer, pushing his face against Loki's thigh. "Yet I continued to fail."

Stephen frowned at him. "How so?"

"I attempted to bind my seidr to him and to push as much of it into him as I possibly could. I...failed." Loki's mouth turned down and his hand tightened in Clint's hair. "I continue to fail."

"Which is why you wanted to try the Time Stone."

Loki shrugged one shoulder. "It is upon Asgard, and I could take it from you if I must. I do not see why I should not attempt to use it."

"It is tied to me with a dead man's spell."

Loki's mouth curled in a mean smile. "You'll find I have no difficulty killing you and bringing you back to life if the need arises."

Bile welled up in his throat at the thought but Stephen nodded. He glanced at Clint, who he knew found relief in that same fact. "I used it on him," he spoke up. "Before he left the Avengers Facility. He could barely stay awake and Wilson had called Barnes away for something and he was asleep. I broke every law of magic and rule I am meant to follow and it did not work."

"How do I know if you speak the truth?"

Stephen shook his head. "Magical residue?" he tried. "But it was six months ago. You may just have to take my word for it."

Loki nodded. He took the hand that had been idly petting through Clint's hair and laid it flat upon his head, and then, much to Stephen's surprise, sunk it beneath the skin, wrist deep under the scalp, digging around in his brain. Loki made a curious sound and at the same moment, Clint's eyes flew open but he didn't move a muscle, staring sightlessly forward as Loki dug around inside of him.

Stephen was no stranger to the intimacy and codependency of their relationship, but it still gave him pause to see it. Perhaps Loki being gone for six months had taken some of the edge off; perhaps he was less used to it now than he had been. Perhaps he had changed more than he realized. 

It took a few minutes for Loki to finish digging around in his skull, and when he finally pulled his hand back out, Stephen half-expected it to be covered with Clint's brains. Loki pet Clint's hair a few times and then turned his attention back to Stephen as Clint's eyes fluttered shut again and his mouth curled in a brief, blissful smile. It broke Stephen's heart to see it.

Loki delicately cleared his throat. "I found evidence of the Time Stone," he informed Stephen, tone a bit too pompous for the circumstances. He took in a breath, held it, and then slowly let it out, as if calming himself down. "It seems I am quickly running out of options."

Stephen didn't know what to say, so he simply nodded, looking between the two of them. His heart broke again for Clint, who had only ever done his best, and had only ever done what was asked of him. He had killed Thanos and this was his repayment? He saved the world and must he die for it? Stephen had exhausted all of his options, but he knew Loki well enough to know that he would fix Clint or die trying. Stephen supposed it was his duty to keep that from happening, one way or another.

* * *

Balder hugged him for so long and so tightly that Loki nearly fainted, but he clung to his brother as tightly as Balder held onto him. He pushed away the mental voice that told him he was being weak, that he should push Balder away, that he should run, and instead he buried his face in Balder’s beard and let his brother’s tears welcome him home.

When Balder finally pulled back, he was beaming, tears in his eyes. “Loki,” he breathed. “Welcome home.”

Loki smiled in return, not showing any teeth, and he inclined his head to his King. “It is good to be home,” he said, clearing his throat of the emotion that showed through in his voice. Balder slung his heavy arm over Loki’s trim shoulders and pulled him in close, dragging him across the room as he moved over to the table that had been set up for their dinner.

Clint and Sif were already seated, helping themselves to the serving plates of food in the middle of the table, and Clint sent Loki a watery smile as the Prince and the King took their respective seats across the table, Loki sliding out from underneath Balder’s arm as they sat down. Clint kicked one of his feet forward and rested it on top of Loki’s boots, picking at some unsalted and unbuttered boiled potatoes and boiled meat on his plate. Sif poked at him to eat and Clint took a small, careful bite, repulsion showing quickly on his face as he forced himself to swallow the food down. Balder watched him with a concerned frown and turned to look at Loki, bushy eyebrows raised.

Loki busied himself with taking a sip of wine and then picking food from the serving plates for his own plate. Balder reached out and put a hand on Loki’s own, stalling his movements.

“What has happened to you in these past months, brother?” Balder questioned, voice thick with concern. “Six months is not very long, but you were unreachable by any means. I truly thought you lost when Heimdall told me how Clint has been suffering and how you had not returned home to Asgard, nor had you fled with Prince Steve.”

Loki’s mouth turned down in a thin line. He turned to look at Balder but his eyes caught on Clint as the archer gagged on a piece of meat and then spit it out onto his plate, hanging his head in embarrassment when Sif handed him a glass of water.

“I was lost,” Loki said finally, Clint’s eyes flicking up to meet his own. “I was taken by the Soul Stone and then the Norns into Yggdrasil.”

He smirked a bit as he turned his attention to Balder to watch his jaw drop. Balder blinked a few times, took a swig from whatever cup was closest, and then repeated, “The Norns took you into Yggdrasil?”

“Aye,” Loki sighed, swirling wine around in his plain glass. “They brought me to Yggdrasil, but before I could speak with them, the Soul Stone took me in. There I spoke with Thor, or whatever is left of him, and made well and sure he was trapped there, and then when I left, the Norns dragged me inside the Tree.”

“All within six months?” Balder said, stunned. Then he frowned. “What do the Norns look like?”

Loki laughed at that, shaking his head. “Urd was old, very old. She was bent over like a cane, with long white hair and a voice...she sounded like your footsteps over a carpet of leaves in a forest where no one has been for thousands of years. Verdandi seemed to be near my age, but she seemed to be...she was very _other_. Something was very odd about her, as if she existed in more than one place at a time, as if she was both in front of me and behind me. It was...disconcerting. And Skuld was a child, no more than 50 years old. They were all dressed in long white shifts, but Skuld’s was too large and Verdandi’s seemed to fit well, while Uld’s was old and in tatters around her.” He paused, taking a sip of wine to hide his grimace. “They are not one person, you know, not one being,” he continued, looking back to Balder. “They are the same consciousness spread across three bodies of the same person; different forms of the same Aesir that exist in the same time.”

Balder made a curious sound at that. “I was unaware of that,” he admitted, filling his own plate with big hunks of meat and eating heartily. “I had thought they were three separate beings.”

Loki and Clint shook their heads at the same time. “The reason they hold such power is they are able to see what was, what is, and what will be,” Loki said. “The Norns are all-powerful and hold the fate of all Aesir.”

“Why did they summon you?” Balder queried around a mouthful of food.

“To give me a choice,” Loki told him, not looking at anyone, staring sightlessly down at his plate. He had not gone into any great detail on the three doors, nor what they held; all he had ever said was that he had not chosen any of them. He still believed it had been a misguided boon on the part of the Norns, but it was...difficult to speak of it. He had grown used to processing things such as that with Clint’s help and he didn’t even know _how_ to deal with it any more. Steve was gone—sometimes it felt like Steve was all that kept Loki afloat when the rest of the world was trying to drag him down into deep water—and Clint was as good as gone.

He was alone.

Loki looked up from his plate and across the table to Sif, who was watching him solemnly, and then to Balder, his brother and his King, and he smiled a bit. Perhaps not entirely alone.

How strange to think of Sif as someone he trusted, someone he could rely on.

“They gave me three choices,” Loki expounded. “Three doors. Alternate timelines. I...I looked at all of them. One was Jotunheim, one was Asgard, and one was upon Midgard. Dr. Strange informed me that he saw the future the Norns crafted for this timeline with the choice I would make, but I made my own decision.”

Clint pulled out his phone to type, **What did the doors show you?**

Loki met his exhausted gaze. “Three other lives I would have lived. A life in Jotunheim where I was not taken from Laufey. A life on Asgard where Thor and I were...younger and close. Closer than I would have liked.” He let that sit in the air for a moment and then finished, “And then a door into Midgard, where I was taken into custody soon after Thanos sent me to Midgard. I was...I would have been alone with all the memories of this life, where I was not alone. They meant for me to start over in every life. I was unwilling to do that.”

Clint nodded. He opened his mouth and then thought better of it and turned his attention back to his half-eaten plate.

Loki continued to look at him. “I fought to come back. I fought the very concept of fate itself to return. I rose up against the Norns and told them they were wrong.”

“I would expect nothing less,” Balder told him, reaching over to refill Loki’s chalice and motioning for him to drink. He chuckled and then shook his great head. “Only you would tell the _Norns_ that their chosen destiny is wrong.”

“I believe there are certain inevitable happenings,” Loki replied casually, looking away from Clint and back over to Balder, obligingly taking a sip of his wine. “But more than that, I believe that regardless of what is meant, I am more than that.”

Sif made a curious sound and Loki’s attention turned to her. “Now instead of working inside inevitabilities, it’s doing whatever you want? I thought you accepted that there were certain destinies that not even you could push against.”

Loki inclined his head. “If a prophecy is foretold, it must come to pass,” he agreed. “Yet if I can tell the Norns they are wrong, then I can also tell reality itself, can I not?”

Balder frowned at him. “Reality itself?” he repeated. “What are you planning?”

“To right it,” Loki told him, eyes moving almost against his will to Clint, who had zoned out, staring off into space. “To fix it.”

“Ah,” Balder murmured. “Do you know yet what Thanos took from him? It seems he has lost more than simply seidr.”

Loki sighed, pushing his food and drink away, stomach twisting. He looked at Clint for a long moment before turning his attention to Balder, face pinched with pain. “His soul has been harmed,” he told his King. “I have held it in my hands and it is lessened. It is weaker than I imagined a soul could be. And...I...perhaps his mind has been affected as well.”

“I spoke with Eir again, and she informed me that there is no injury to his mouth or throat that keeps him from speaking,” Sif spoke up. “Her scans went as in depth as they were able without physically touching him.” She took a sip of mead. “The injury to his ears happened when he was very young, and it healed poorly. She does not believe it could be repaired, even with seidr or potions.”

“I attempted a spell,” Loki told them, voice quiet, almost ashamed it did not work. “I attempted to bind my seidr to his form to give him strength, to funnel as much as I was able into him. It did not work. Whatever was done to him turned him into a sieve; seidr simply goes through him.” He shook his head, mouth turning down in a thin, tight frown. “He will forever seek out something that he can no longer wield, I fear.”

“What do you plan on doing?” Balder questioned. At Loki’s amused look, he explained, “I know you have a plan, Loki. Whatever it may be, you must tell me. The type of power required to repair such—” He stopped himself, heavy brow furrowing. “Do you mean to use the Reality Stone?”

Loki regarded him for a long moment, then casually shrugged one shoulder. “The assumption could be made that if the Reality Stone is what caused the damage, then it could surely be what fixes it.”

“The Reality Stone is within the Vault. I will allow you one use of it before it is locked away again.” Balder looked between the two of them. “Loki, I trust you. I know you have his interests at heart, but you have a tendency to...take.”

Loki’s shoulders tightened and he leaned away, picking up his chalice and tightening his hand around the stem to stop himself from throwing it. “I take what is rightfully mine,” Loki replied, tone sour. “I have spent my entire life having everything taken from me. Is it so wrong to take in return?”

Balder sighed and reached out to set a hand on Loki’s shoulder. Loki stiffened but after looking at him, did not pull away. Balder looked between Clint, who was nearly falling asleep upright in his seat, and Loki, and then said, his voice soft but strong, “Sometimes we must let the ones we love rest.”

Loki physically recoiled from him, shoving Balder’s hand off his shoulder. “What would you have me do? Leave him _here?_ Let Aesir take advantage of him until he succumbs to death or worse?”

The King and the Prince both glared at one another for long enough that Sif cleared her throat and spoke up, “Can you even repair the damage?”

“I will not know until I use the Reality Stone on him,” Loki replied tightly.

“And I will not allow you to use it unless you are certain it will help and not harm him further,” Balder told him.

Loki scoffed at him. “Allow?” He reached into the ether and pulled out the Reality Stone, pushing to his feet and moving to the end of the table. The movement seemed to jolt Clint back to awareness and he blinked a few times, tiredly looking up at Loki and reaching out a hand for him.

Balder looked between them, a smile slowly breaking out over his face and then he fondly shook his head while Loki took Clint’s hand in his own, the two of them staring at each other. “I should have known,” Balder chuckled, turning his attention back to his food. “How did you even get it? None of my wards were triggered.”

“It was the first place I went upon returning home,” Loki replied smugly, patting Clint’s hand and then dropping it, holding the Reality Stone up to the light. Sif rolled her eyes at him and pointedly poured herself a large glass of wine. “Your wards were powerful, and would keep out most who sought the Stone, but brother, you must remember I am your mage. Asgard’s seidr responds to me.”

Balder merely laughed again, smiling behind his beard. “Of course,” he replied easily. “Very well. You may use the Reality Stone. But only once, and only upon Clint, and then you must return it to the Vault, and spell it to be unattainable. Am I understood?”

Loki paused for a moment and then inclined his head. “Of course, King.”

“And I will be in the room when you use it,” Balder finished, looking up from the bread he was buttering. “That will keep you from doing anything...nefarious.” He smiled a bit. “You may be Asgard’s mage, brother, but I am her King. I am Balder Allfather, King of Asgard. I have all the Balder-force that comes with the throne, and all the power before that. You may be Loki, but I am your King. Do well to remember that.”

Loki swept into a low, formal bow. “Of course, King,” he murmured cheekily. “I would never dare to disrespect your throne.”

“Sit, Loki, and eat with me. If you were respectful of my throne, I would consider you cursed.”

Loki put the Reality Stone away and joined him, the two of them sharing a plate. Across the table, Clint watched Loki eat and then Sif pulled him away, taking him back to Loki’s private quarters so he could rest comfortably in bed.

“You may have to consider what you’re going to do with him if the Reality Stone does not work.”

Loki sighed, shaking his head. “I am aware. Perhaps it will be good you will be in the room. If there is a decision to be made, I fear I will be unable to make it.”

“We will make it together, brother. That is what I am here for.” 

They spoke long into the night. They shared wine and food and stories about the months of their separation. When Balder questioned him about Thor and the Soul Stone, Loki was barely able to stop himself from breaking down into tears, and he pulled the scroll of Thor's words out from his pocket dimension and handed it over before he could talk himself out of it. Balder read every word without flinching and without judgement, and then listened to what Loki had found behind each door the Norns showed him.

Later, after they were finished, when Balder hugged him again, Loki hugged back with all his strength.


	3. part three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reality Stone.

“The Time Stone did not change anything,” Stephen Strange said, holding up the Reality Stone and shaking his head. “How would the Reality Stone be any different?”

“The Reality Stone is what altered him to begin with,” Loki replied from where he was lounging on the couch, dressed in a long black shift and black slippers. Clint was curled up at the bottom of the couch, propped up on the arm, trying mightily to keep himself conscious. He had already drank his morning potion and water and was waiting for Loki to use the Reality Stone on him. He had a sinking feeling it was his last chance. Loki then sighed and dramatically leaned his head back, casting his gaze to the intricately painted and decorated ceiling. “It is the only Stone left to use on him. I entreated the Vision for use of the Mind Stone before I went to the Sanctum Sanatorum to speak with you, and he refused. I thought I had made the choice clear, but he did not understand.”

“How so?”

“The Mind Stone is what bound Clint and I to begin with. I had thought, at the very least, that I could use it to bind our minds again, even if I could do nothing else…” Loki trailed off with a world-weary sigh. “Yet he did not see reason.”

“You wished to use an Infinity Stone to bind your mind to a human’s,” Stephen told him, leaning forward to hand the Stone back. Loki motioned for him to drop it on the table between them and Stephen complied. “Even if Clint consented to that, which I know he would, it would still be an unequal relationship. I can see why the Vision thought of it that way, when you look at the simple pros and cons of the equation.”

Loki was off the couch and with his hand at Stephen’s neck faster than Stephen could blink. He yanked the witch out of his chair and up into the air, Stephen scrabbling at his hand and snarling at him. Loki held him up for a moment, digging his long nails into Stephen’s neck, and then threw him back down, glaring furiously at him. “I do not _care_ about a machine’s opinion,” Loki snarled. “I could only not rip the Mind Stone out of the Vision’s head because no Infinity Stone can overpower another, but when I attempted to do so, he used the Stone against me to convince me I did not need it. I overpowered the compulsion but by the time I did, he had vanished.”

Stephen blinked a few times. “Then you came to the Sanctum?”

Loki glared at him again but retook his seat on the couch, Clint waking up and then tipping over to push his face into Loki’s lap. Loki looked down at him and then gently pet a hand through his hair. Poor thing. “I had to check on someone first, but then, yes. There is still much to do.” For a moment, he struggled with the thought, with the looming weight hanging over him, but then he shook his head and continued, “Much to do and much to be done.”

“Where did you go?” Loki merely stared him down and Stephen finally sighed, rolling his eyes. “Fine. Where are you going, then?”

“After I use the Reality Stone, I will begin the search for my wayward husband.”

Stephen nodded, eyes trailing down to Clint. “Will he be going with you?”

“As of now, yes. But I will know better once I use the Stone.”

Stephen idly scratched a couple scarred fingers over his goatee. “I’m curious, Loki—are you telling me this because you wish for me to stop you? Or because you want help?”

Loki leveled him a flat look. “Balder wishes for the Reality Stone to be spelled unattainable after I use it. Kamar-Taj knows more about keeping an Infinity Stone safe than any other organization on any realm that I have found.”

“So you’re asking…”

“For help, yes,” Loki said, gaze turning briefly away from Stephen and then back to him. “My thought is that keeping an Infinity Stone on Asgard introduces strife and invites invasion and dissent.”

Stephen nodded, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, looking at the Reality Stone on the table between them. He then looked to Clint, passed out on Loki’s lap, mouth thinning and turning down. “This seems like something he would bring up, not you.”

Loki pointedly curled his fingers around the back of Clint’s head and tugged at his hair. “Little difference,” he dismissed. “Now, my intention is to hide the Reality Stone. Does Kamar-Taj keep the Time Stone safe simply because it is relatively unknown that the Eye of Agamotto wields it? I must admit to being curious what a conglomerate of humans has learned from studying an Infinity Stone for so long. It must be known now that Asgard is in possession of the Reality Stone, given that Thanos wielded it and his corpse was brought here.”

“How do you intend to keep your _two_ Infinity Stones safe?” Stephen interrupted. “We at Kamar-Taj have spent centuries secreting away and studying one Stone, creating wards and spells to keep it safe. We created wards around the entire _planet_ to Keep the stone. It has taken hundreds, if not thousands, of sorcerers, to do so. You are simply one being. Be you Loki or otherwise, you are only one.” He swallowed thickly. “You may have been two before, but for now, you are only one.”

Loki nodded, considering it.

“How many beings in the grand expanse of time have been Keepers of Infinity Stones and have failed to Keep them?”

Loki nodded again, slowly, gaze falling to Clint, something beginning to take shape in his mind. “Am I allowed in Kamar-Taj’s libraries?” he asked abruptly.

“What would you give me in return?” Stephen asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Loki held up Clint’s head and motioned vaguely towards his body. Stephen grimaced. “No?”

“I prefer my bed partners conscious, and healthy, for what it’s worth.”

“I could give him a potion that would give him enough energy to—”

“No,” Stephen interrupted. “Not taking advantage of him. Try something else. What do you want to give me in exchange for unrestricted use of my libraries?”

At that, Loki’s mouth curved into a smile. He reached into the ether and pulled out a small marble, holding it out in his palm. “An equal trade, surely. I have spent centuries collecting books and they are contained here.” His smile widened as Stephen’s face transformed into pure greediness. “You would be able to spend as much time in there as you wished.”

Stephen managed to smooth his face back to calmness and he slowly nodded, mind racing. “How are the libraries of Kamar-Taj worth this? Worth the knowledge you would be giving me?”

“You owe me,” Loki replied simply. “I am calling in a debt, and kindly giving you something in return. But you and I are...on a similar path, are we not? Both powerful sorcerers in our own right, both Keepers of an Infinity Stone, both destined to live very long lives.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and then continued, “I find myself willing to give you a chance to redeem yourself and your poor behavior.”

Stephen nodded. “You’re scared,” he said finally, watching as Loki’s mouth thinned and turned down, one hand tightening in Clint’s hair. “You know I won’t just read everything, I’ll research, look for something you missed, something that can help him. So what are you looking for in Kamar-Taj? Not just information on keeping an Infinity Stone safe…” He trailed off, thinking, brow furrowed.

“Fine,” Loki interjected before Stephen could continue and potentially find out what Loki was considering. “Yes, I would like your help. Is it enough to have to ask twice or must I get on bended knee and beg?”

A long moment passed where Stephen seemed to be genuinely considering it and then he broke and laughed. “No,” he chuckled, “surely not. I would be honored to assist you, Prince Loki, especially if it will—”

“Oh, shut up,” Loki muttered, a small smile curling up one corner of his mouth. In his lap, Clint yawned and blinked awake, looking tiredly between the two of them. His eyes caught on the marble in Loki’s hand and he reached out, pressing his fingers to it. Nothing happened and he slumped back down to the couch, squeezing his eyes shut. Loki pet through his hair and asked him, “Would you enjoy spending time in my library?”

Clint nodded.

“Excellent,” Loki replied, tucking the library marble into Clint’s palm and folding his fingers around it. He made to get up and then paused. “I will show you how to open it tomorrow,” Loki decided, “after I use the Reality Stone.”

“Your intention is to do that tonight?”

Loki leveled Stephen a flat look. “When else should it be done?”

Stephen just sighed. “Fine. We both know no one is changing your mind once you’ve decided on something. But anyone else would argue the point that you should talk to—”

Loki pushed to his feet, grabbing the Reality Stone off the table, and left the room before Stephen could finish speaking. Stephen just rolled his eyes and joined Clint on the couch, taking his hand and plucking the library marble out of his fingers. Clint raised an eyebrow at him and sat up straight.

“How does it work?” Stephen murmured to himself, brow wrinkling as he examined the marble.

Clint picked up his phone and typed out, **Seidrspace. He created space in between dimensions and built his library there, and then narrowed it down until it fit into a marble, kind of like a size spell.**

Stephen nodded slowly. “What dimensions?”

Clint sighed. **It’s too hard to explain over text. I’d have to show you, and I can’t.**

Stephen closed his hand around the marble and looked to Clint, reaching out to pat his hand. Clint turned his hand over and tangled their fingers together. “If the space is between dimensions, how does time pass?”

The corner of Clint’s mouth curled into a smile. **Differently,** he replied simply. **Loki can make it pass however he wants.**

Stephen chuckled at that. “Of course,” he murmured, tipping his head forward to touch it against Clint’s. He tucked the marble away into one of the inner pockets of his tunic, sliding his arm over Clint’s shoulders and holding him close.

The two of them sat in comfortable silence, curled together on the couch.

In the bedroom, Loki changed out of his shift and paused before beginning to pull on his leathers. His eyes kept getting caught on Steve’s various vestments and clothes hanging in their closet, and finally giving into the impulse, he pulled one of Steve’s sweaters down off the hangar and buried his face in it.

What had he _done?_ What had they all done? What manner of greater mistake had ever been made, and how could he fix any of it?

He knew he had plans. He had plans upon plans upon plans. He had plans for everything he could imagine, and more plans for everything he could not imagine. He knew precisely what he was going to do, precisely how to do it, and all potential outcomes.

But what was a life alone?

He was Loki, yes, and he had once thought that to be Loki was to be alone, but he knew better now. He knew that to be Loki he stood above, but he stood with those he loved. And who loved him now? His husband had left him, gone to the stars, and Clint was barely human, a shell of himself. He still had his friends, but what could they do for him?

Loki held Steve’s sweater to his face and wept.

Warm hands, roughened by weapons and war, gently pulled the sweater away from his face. Loki blinked a few times at the light and then looked up to see Sif staring down at him. A cutting, sharp comment came quickly to his mouth but he stopped himself, taking the handkerchief she held out, patting his face dry.

“I spoke to the tailor,” Sif told him, stepping back once Loki managed to get ahold of himself, not offering him a hand up as he pushed to his feet. She folded Steve’s sweater before setting it in the laundry basket. “I was informed that Steve’s capes were made red because that is the color of the thunderer.” Her voice was clipped and proper and she stepped out of the closet, not offering to help Loki dress. Her sharp eyes caught briefly on his shaking hands before darting away, back up to his face, not mentioning it. “I informed the royal tailors of how inappropriate this was and was promised it would be rectified immediately. Do you have color preferences?”

“Blue, perhaps,” Loki finally said, wincing at the rasp in his voice. Sif quickly brought him a glass of water without comment. “Or purple. Colors benefiting a Prince, not Thor’s copy.”

Sif’s mouth opened and then closed. She fought with herself for a moment before finally saying, “You said you had been in the Soul Stone with Thor. What did he say?”

“Nothing good,” Loki muttered, turning away from her as he picked up his trousers and began to pull them on. Once they were pulled up around his waist, he got his tunic and his vambraces and his greaves and began to put them on, slowly and methodically, pulling on his tunic first and then doing up the straps. He pulled on socks and then his boots, tidying his pants before strapping on his greaves. Sif handed him a cloth and he wiped down his leathers, buffing the gold adornments clean. Finally he twirled his cape around his shoulders and attached it to the small, mostly decorative pauldrons.

He paused for a moment, looking at himself in the mirror. His hair hung lank and lifeless about his face, his skin was sunken and sallow, his eyes dark and haunted, and it seemed as if nothing was set correctly on his body. Loki grimaced at himself and debated pulling a glamour over himself, but decided against it.

His attention turned to Sif, patiently waiting. He thought, for a moment, about showing her the scroll of Thor’s words, and examined his immediate reaction of fear and rejection. Fear—why? What would she do? Tell someone? What information did she not have that the words would give her?

Rejection—why? He and Sif had never gotten along, not ever. They had fought and argued and hated one another.

He thought of the time when Steve had brought her into their bed, his threat to kill her if he ever found her there again.

He thought of the way she pledged fidelity to Steve, not once, but many times. He thought of her unquestioning loyalty and uncompromising service, and he thought of her unquestioning care of Clint, unable to advocate for himself, unable to do nearly anything.

He reached into the ether and pulled out the long scroll, turning it over in his hands, looking it over. Bile rose in his throat at the thought of the horrible things written there, of the things Thor had admitted, of everything else that was still unsaid.

“Who comes first in your heart?” he asked her.

“Steve,” came Sif’s quick, uncomplicated answer. “Prince Steve Rogers of Asgard.”

“Who am I to you?”

Sif’s mouth quirked into a small smile, her eye glittering. “You’re the bane of my existence,” she chuckled, and Loki pointedly rolled his eyes. “And I consider it an honor to live in your house.”

Loki gave one sharp nod and then handed the scroll over. Sif frowned as she took it, looking it over.

“That is the only copy of those words anywhere in existence,” Loki informed her. Sif nodded in understanding. “They are what Thor said to me inside the Soul World. Read it soon, and return it to me once you are finished. It is...vile. I assume I do not need to warn you of the consequences if anything on that scroll reaches the ears of anyone outside those I trust.”

“Of course, Sire.”

Loki pushed past her out of the bedroom, gaze landing on Clint and Stephen curled together on the couch. “I will be leaving to use the Reality Stone shortly,” he informed them. “Are either of you planning on joining me?”

Clint lifted his head from Stephen’s chest and smiled tiredly at him.

“Now?” Stephen asked, pressing a brief kiss to Clint’s hair before pushing to his feet, absently brushing his hands over his clothes to knock a bit of dust off. “It is still morning.”

“Should I merely go into a ritual without preparation?” Loki commented archly, gesturing for Clint to get up and join him. “I intend for us to eat lunch and then begin. You are welcome to join, Doctor.”

Stephen shook his head and made to follow Loki and Clint out of their rooms, but Sif’s voice stopped the small procession.

“Prince,” she called. “Am I meant to stay here and read this? It will surely take hours.”

“Read it after,” Loki told her. He paused for a moment and then gestured her closer, holding his hand out for the scroll. “I would tell you to leave it somewhere safe, but I cannot have those words falling into anyone’s hands.” He sent it into the ether and ignored curious looks from both Stephen and Clint, leading everyone out of the room.

They were all relatively quiet through lunch, talking of nothing of consequence, all subdued as they thought about the Reality Stone in one of Loki’s various pocket dimensions. Clint picked at his food, unable to eat, nearly nauseous with unease. He was tired, beyond tired, but he struggled to stay awake. He was just so _exhausted_. Every blink felt heavy and his heart hurt.

He had a sinking, horrible feeling that if the Reality Stone didn’t fix him, he was going to wither away into nothing. He couldn’t bear to do that to Loki. He could already see the god beginning to fray at the edges, see that he was carrying too much on his shoulders, that he could only handle so much more without Clint there to help him. He had been designed and made to do one thing, and he was incapable of that.

If the Reality Stone didn’t work, he thought he should ask Loki to kill him. Get it over with. Save himself from months or even years of suffering.

He knew he could never ask that of Loki, not really, but the thought was there.

When they finished, Balder and Loki left first to talk over Loki’s plan. Stephen, Sif, and Clint hung back, Stephen and Clint moving over to the lounge on the other side of the small dining room in front of the fire, Sif taking over a chair to sit at the end closest to Clint.

None of the three of them spoke for a bit, until Sif broke the silence with, “What do you think Loki is going to do?”

Stephen sighed, ran a hand through Clint’s hair. “I can only guess,” he hedged, Sif nodding in understanding, “but my guess is that he will change the reality of Clint’s being. Although I do not know how well it will work if Clint is unable to retain seidr, but it could yet change that. My expertise is confined mostly to the Time Stone, and it did not work on Clint, so I am unsure to how the Reality Stone could change him.”

“He said that because the Reality Stone changed him to begin with, it could change him back.”

Stephen sighed. “Yes, and I do not believe he is wrong. But the unknown variable here is Thor’s spell and the change it created. Perhaps the Reality Stone will not work on him now because of the change. Even I don’t know precisely everything that Thor changed in this timeline. He had those thousands upon thousands of iterations to figure it out, and I would surely need the same amount of time to study the spell and all of it’s side effects to understand it. I doubt even Loki knows the entirety of what Thor did.”

Sif nodded slowly, thinking of the scroll Loki had given her and then taken away, and the pinched look of strained relief on Loki’s face once it was back in his hands. She hoped she would be allowed to read it. “Did Loki ever figure out how many iterations there were?”

“84,109,” Stephen replied. “There’s no way to know for sure how many years that took him, but Loki’s guess was a minimum of 100,000, and I agreed with that assessment.” He glanced at Sif and her understandably stunned face. “Loki also told me that Thor killed him to end each iteration, which means that he is 84,109 times more Loki than he was in the first life. Whatever power that means, or whatever intelligence or knowledge…” Stephen trailed off, shaking his head. He glanced at Clint, who was predictably asleep, and then continued, voice quiet, “The only one who knows what happened in those lives is Loki. I think he knows more than he’s letting on, and I doubt he’ll talk about it.”

“To anyone other than Clint,” Sif said, Stephen nodding in agreement. She sighed. “You truly believe he remembers each life?”

“I know quite a bit more than the average person about time spells,” Stephen told her, “and I know that the amount of power and magic needed to create a spell like that doesn’t just vanish when it’s broken. Loki was the focus point of it, so one could make a hypothesis that the magic focused on him when the spell broke.”

“He said the Norns pulled him away,” Sif replied thoughtfully. “Maybe it went somewhere else.”

Stephen shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe it vanished. Maybe it didn’t exist at all, or maybe it fractured over the years and seeped out into the universe and dissipated. I would need something that anchored the spell to know, and I would be surprised if any of those still existed.”

Curled against Stephen’s side, Clint peeked open one eye, frowning thoughtfully as he tried to think through his tired, musty brain.

* * *

Clint knelt naked in the middle of a heavily warded ritual room. Around him were various golden coins, arranged in a specific pattern, and directly in front of him was the golden snake that Balder had so long ago given Loki. Loki had done something to it, something that kept drawing his attention to it, almost unable to look away, and it took him a few minutes to realize it was completely soaked in Loki’s seidr. Being as bereft of it as he was, his soul and body ached in emptiness, all of him crying out for what Thanos had ripped away from him. His hands itched to reach out for it, but he stopped himself, trying to be patient.

Loki had created a ritual circle and put three chairs outside the perimeter of it, and Sif, Balder, and Stephen Strange were already seated, keeping an eye on Clint. Loki and Balder had spent the past five or so hours talking over Loki’s various options and spells and what he would do if the Reality Stone didn’t work. Loki’s first priority was Clint’s soul, and then his seidr, then his mind, and finally his body. If Loki could repair his soul and fix whatever was causing him to sieve seidr, repairing his mind and body would be relatively easy.

Cool hands cupped his jaw and tilted his head up. Clint blinked up at Loki, who was dressed in plain black linens that kept him clothed from neck to wrist to toe but able to move easily and quickly if necessary, and leaned fully into his grasp. Whatever Loki was going to do to him, he would take it, and he would let whatever was going to happen happen. Either he would live or he would die. Either was fine with him at this point.

He didn’t have his hearing aids in, so he had to rely on lip reading and gestures. Loki bent forward and pressed a kiss to Clint’s forehead, leaving behind a green seidr imprint that faded after a few moments. He stepped back and pulled the Reality Stone out of the ether. He held it out for a moment, taking in a deep breath, and then Loki clutched the Stone in one fist.

Clint watched him, meeting Loki’s intense green gaze. Then red seidr fire erupted over Loki’s fist and he held it up, a brief smile crossing his face, and Clint smiled with him, knowing precisely what his god was thinking. Who could stop him now?

But instead of using his three Infinity Stones to take over the world, to become the mightiest and most powerful being in each and every galaxy, Loki turned to Clint, and rested his red seidr hand on his head.

Clint smiled, eyes fluttering shut.

Surely it couldn’t be that easy? Surely there had to be something else? Surely it would not be—

He screamed as pain lanced through him, as agony erupted along every cell, as his blood felt as if it had ignited with flame, although he could not hear it, and Loki’s other hand caught him as Clint tried to throw himself back, anything to get away from the Reality Stone. Loki dropped the Stone, holding Clint close as pain wracked his body, as it seared his skin, as his very throat felt like it was going to burst through his neck as he shrieked.

Finally the agony subsided enough that he could take in a harsh, rasping gasp, curling up into Loki’s arms, panting into his chest. He couldn’t say anything, his mouth unable to form words, his tongue a limp fish, but he tried to beg, tried to plead—whatever Thanos had done to him could not be undone. Loki would have to find another way.

But what if there was no other way? What if he was broken forever? What if, for all his skill and all his knowledge, Loki couldn’t fix him?

Tremors shivered through his body and he shuddered, a sudden chill replacing the pain, and Clint looked up to see Balder standing next to them, massive arms crossed over his huge chest. He was explaining something and Clint could feel Loki shaking his head.

He frowned at the two of them and then turned his attention to Sif, holding out his hand towards her. She raised her eyebrows at him but brought over his hearing aids, waiting until he put them in before going to sit back down.

“—kill him otherwise,” Balder said, sounding furious. “I _told_ you that wouldn’t work. You can’t create something out of nothing.”

Clint pulled back, rubbing his hands over his arms to fight off the chill. Loki frowned at him, conjuring a blanket and wrapping it around him. He patted Clint’s thigh and then pushed elegantly to his feet, holding out his hand to summon the Reality Stone. “I gave the Reality Stone as much seidr as it needed,” Loki told him. “It refused it.”

“Which means it can’t fix what’s wrong,” Balder replied shortly. “You can’t replace it. You have to rebuild it.”

Loki gave an annoyed sigh, gesturing to the various gold coins scattered around Clint, and Clint frowned at them, noticing that many of them were blackened and misshapen. “I funneled my seidr through the coins—”

“Which I said wouldn’t work,” Balder interrupted. “If you’re going to keep risking his life for your hubris, I won’t stand for it, Loki.”

Loki snarled at him, restraining himself. “I know what I’m doing,” he spat, turning his back on Balder and back to Clint. “Sit back down,” he told Balder, red seidr fire erupting around his fist again. Balder muttered something and shook his head, moving out of the ritual circle and back to his seat. Clint winced at the sight of the fire and caught sight of Stephen leaning over to say something to Balder before his world erupted in pain and agony again and then everything went red, and then black.

* * *

Clint blinked awake on a bed, surprisingly able to hear. He lifted one hand to his ears and found his hearing aids still lodged in there, which explained it, and he yawned to himself, slowly becoming aware of the argument happening in the next room. He sat up, stretched, and frowned when he realized his mind was clear for the first time in six months. He stood up and looked down at his body, noticing that it seemed less skeletal than before, and there was not the now-familiar fatigue in his muscles and joints. He opened his mouth but it refused to speak, but he moved quickly out of Loki’s bedroom and into the living room, where Loki and Stephen and Balder were all yelling at each other, Sif standing near the bedroom door, watching the fight with something approaching amusement on her face.

She noticed Clint first, giving him a pointed look, and he followed her gaze down to see he was still naked.

Before he could do anything about that, he heard Loki snarl, “I _told_ you,” and his god came around to grab him by the shoulders and shove him forward. “The Reality Stone helped. It did not fix him, but see? He looks better than he did before I used the Stone.”

Clint looked between Balder and Stephen and just sighed, shaking his head. He definitely felt better, but he didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, and maybe he’d just finally had a good rest. Although he’d slept quite a bit in the past six months and had never felt this good, even since Loki had returned.

“You nearly killed him,” Stephen hissed. “Balder told you that you can’t create a person out of nothing. He’s barely half a person and you can’t just—”

“He was half a person before!” Loki barked. “What could possibly be different now? The Reality Stone took him away from me and I will do whatever it takes to fix that.”

“Even if you kill him in the process?” Balder asked, voice soft. “Or kill yourself?”

Loki’s hands tightened compulsively on Clint’s bare shoulders, his long nails digging into Clint’s skin. The familiar pain made his knees go weak and his heart tremble in his chest and a brief smile flickered over his face. “What other options are there?” Loki finally questioned. “All I have left is to use the Reality Stone until it fixes him or kills him.”

That shut both Balder and Stephen down, and Balder shook his head, dropping down into the nearest armchair, burying his head in his hands. Stephen paced, hands clasped behind his back, frowning at the floor. Loki steered Clint to a nearby lounge and laid him down, summoning a blanket to wrap around him.

“I will fix this,” Loki promised him, searching Clint’s face. “I swear.”

Clint caught one of his hands and nodded. _I trust you,_ he mouthed.

They talked through the night about various options. Both Stephen and Balder were adamantly against Loki’s plan and were demanding he come up with another.

“The Reality Stone will not continue to heal him in increments,” Balder said. “It will plateau, sooner rather than later, and you _will_ kill him in the process. I will not be party to that, Loki, and I will not let it happen on Asgard. Whatever desperation this is, whatever is causing this lapse in logic, I will help you, but I will _not_ stand for this behavior. You are a Prince, my Prince, and you are Asgard’s mage. This kind of behavior is disgusting for one of your station.”

Loki glowered at him. “I have tried _everything_ else,” he bit out. “The Reality Stone is the only thing left to use. It is, quite literally, the last option.”

“What if you’re trying to heal the wrong thing?” Stephen suddenly spoke up, pausing in his pacing. “What were you working on?”

“His soul,” Loki replied with a frown.

“You’re compatible souls, right? Mirror souls?” Stephen pressed. Loki’s eyebrows came together but he nodded. “You’re starting at the wrong part. You need to pull back and fix the separate parts of him first. Not what was harmed first.”

Loki tapped one long finger against his chin. “His body, then? But he seemed to gain weight.” He gestured to Clint lying next to him on the lounge, watching all of them argue over him. “He surely looks better than he did before.”

“Then that’s not what you need to focus on,” Stephen continued. “You have to break it down into smaller pieces. Rebuild him from the ground up.”

“Sire?” came Sif’s voice. “I may have an idea.” In her hand, she held Clint’s phone, and she held it up. “When these Midgard devices act up, or glitch, they are turned off and then back on again.”

“What are you saying?” Loki asked.

“Do something similar with Clint,” Sif said. “I do not know exactly what it would be, but perhaps it could work.”

Balder made a thoughtful noise, suddenly pushing to his feet and striding over to Loki. “You asked for me to be in the room because you feared you would not be able to make the decision that needed to be made.” Loki’s mouth turned down but he nodded once, looking up at his brother, his King. “ _This_ is the decision, Loki. And I think you know what you must do.”

“I don’t…” Loki tried, trailing off. “I already tried to take the Mind Stone and the Vision would not let me have it. I have no way of...rebooting him.”

Stephen came closer as well, something sad in his eyes. “When Thanos ripped seidr and the bonds out of him, he broke Clint’s mind. You know this. Whatever you do will not repair that. But you can...start over. Square one. Rebuild the wall.”

Loki’s hands shook and he buried his head in his heads. “I could not,” he rasped out. Clint looked between all of them, feeling the clarity in his mind begin to slip away as he yawned. “Steve is gone, I cannot lose Clint as well.”

“He won’t be gone,” Balder said, crouching down in front of Loki, resting his hands on his knees. “He’ll be yours.”

Loki’s entire body shuddered and he leaned forward, tipping off the lounge and into Balder’s arms. “I miss him,” Loki sobbed into Balder’s chest, his strong arms carefully holding Loki close. “I miss both of them. I did—I did _everything_ , and now more must be taken from me.”

“I know,” Balder told him, pressing his cheek to the top of Loki’s head. On the lounge, Clint tried to reach out a hand, but sudden weakness made it feel like he was lifting a 1000lb weight, and he let out a sigh, eyes sliding shut almost against his will. He only opened his eyes again when long fingers traced over the planes of his face and he looked up to see Stephen sitting next to him, looking down at him with a heartbroken look on his face.

“I regret it,” Loki said, pulling back from Balder, who gently reached out to wipe the tears off Loki’s face. “I should never have killed Thanos.”

“Yes, you should have,” Balder assured him, a small smile creasing his face. “You know that sacrificing those you love is enough to keep the entire galaxy safe. But you have them, even if not the way you once did. And you wanted to fix this, and you know this is a sacrifice he’ll make for you.” He glanced at Clint over Loki’s shoulder and then looked back to his prince. “He will lose _everything_ —memories of his wife, his children, his life. He will do all of that and you know it, and yet you say you lost him?” Balder shook his great head. “The time comes when we all must sacrifice, Loki, and today you get that sacrifice back. Do you understand me?”

Loki nodded, rubbing his hands over his face. He took in a deep, shuddering breath and whispered, “What if he does not know me?”

“He’ll know you until the end of the world. You _know_ this,” Balder promised him.

Loki turned and looked back to Clint. “You will do this?”

Clint nodded, not entirely sure what he was even agreeing to. Stephen helped him sit up and Sif handed him his phone. He typed out, **Without hesitation.** He paused for a moment and then continued, **Whatever it takes, right?**

Loki smiled a bit. “Whatever it takes,” he affirmed, and then reached forward to press his fingers to Clint’s forehead.

* * *

He opened his eyes and looked up at the unfamiliar, peculiar room. He was in a strange bed that floated off the floor, and there was peculiar golden and green...magic? That wasn’t the right word, but it was close. Gold and green _something_ wrapped all around him. He was naked, which was strange but did not worry him, and when he moved his hand against the soft sheets, he realized he could not hear anything, but that did not seem to bother him. It seemed...normal, almost? He found two peculiar devices on the table next to his bed, and his hands seemed to naturally bring them to his ears, and when he turned them on, he realized he could hear.

It took him a while to remember his name. He remembered other things first—his bow, his house, the feeling of sun on his face and the feeling of sharp nails digging into his skin, drinking a potion that made him cry, tossing a faceless, nameless kid up into the air and catching them, leaping off a building and catching himself with a grappling arrow, fighting aliens, a dagger with a massive ruby embedded in the hilt, lightning, the end of the world—and when his name came, he mouthed it to himself.

_Clint Barton._

He remembered his name, and when the door to the unfamiliar room opened and a tall man walked in, Clint felt his face break into a smile that felt strangely familiar on his face. The man was tall, with long, greasy black hair and sharp green eyes in a pointed face, and he wore peculiar clothes, and Clint knew that he loved this man more than anything in the world.

“Oh,” the man said, catching sight of him. Something vulnerable flickered over his face before he straightened up, pushing his shoulders back, lifting his chin. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Clint rasped out, and the man’s green eyes went wide in shock at the sound of his voice. “I’m awake. How long’s it been?”

“Long enough,” the man said, moving closer. There was something tender in his eyes. He picked at the palm of one hand with his long painted nails. “Do you...know me?”

“Yeah,” Clint said, reaching out a hand towards his god. “I know you.”

Loki took his hand, intertwining their fingers, his mouth curling up into a warm smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much everyone! i appreciate all the readers and the reviewers and the folks who leave kudos. it means the world to me.
> 
> next part should be up in the next few weeks (it's a one-shot), and i'm still hacking away at the next longer piece in this series (Search for Steve (tm)). stay tuned!
> 
> hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> this author accepts all comments, including constructive criticism to keysmashes to compliments. please leave comments and kudos! thank you!


End file.
